The described technology relates to a closure assembly, such as for a drawer of a refrigerator, and more particular such as for a bottom freezer drawer of the refrigerator, and a corresponding method.
In a known refrigerator that includes a bottom freezer drawer, problems are caused by failure of the drawer to be or to remain completely closed. This failure may be due to user error (e.g. failure of the user to ensure that the drawer is closed after food is placed in or removed from the drawer), operation of the refrigerator (e.g., vibrations caused by operation of the refrigerator resulting in the opening of the drawer), or environmental conditions (e.g., temperature changes within or outside the drawer causing changes in pressure that result in the opening of the drawer). Obviously, the failure of the drawer to be or to remain completely closed results in increased energy usage by the refrigerator, as the refrigerator continues to operate in an attempt to keep the temperature within the freezer drawer at or below a predetermined minimum temperature, and results in food loss when the refrigerator is not successful in maintaining the minimum temperature.
For these reasons, it is desirable to provide a closing mechanism that closes the freezer drawer under certain conditions. Known closing mechanisms suffer from numerous disadvantages, however. For example, some closing mechanisms provide a closing force through an entire range of movement of the freezer drawer. Such a closing mechanism presents an annoyance to the user of the refrigerator, however, as the drawer is constantly being urged toward the closed position, even when the user desires that the drawer remain open. Other closing mechanisms rely on complex systems of springs and gears, integrated into rails on which the freezer drawer slides open and closed, to close the freezer drawer. As a result of this complexity and integration, maintenance, repair and replacement of such a closing mechanism is both complicated and expensive.